The Patriots Have Moved Their Best Rookie Jack Jones to the Suspended List. What Fresh Hell is This?

Nick Grace. Getty Images.

I don't think I ask for a lot. Truly I don't. 

I honestly feel as though I've been given far more than I ever expected. A nice life.My health. A job I love. A family I adore. Every episode of Hogan's Heroes ever made at the touch of a button. A team that has won more Super Bowls in the last 21 years of my life than they had won playoff games in all the years prior. I've be blessed with everything I ever could've hoped for. And more.

At this point, all I want is a very simple thing. Hope for a good future. I'm not even asking for a promise. Or for that hope to be paid off. At this point, I'd be happy just to believe it could. "Hope is a good thing. Perhaps the best of things." And all that. 

So with the 2022 Patriots sitting at 8-8 and facing a seemingly impossible task of walking into Buffalo on a wildly emotional day, needing to beat a team that has been a match up nightmare for them in order to make the playoffs, I'm not necessarily asking for a win. All I want is hope that they'll be better next season. That they'll continue to improve. Be prepared to make a deep postseason run next year. Coach it up better in 2023. And the crucial part of that is the last three draft classes improving on the enormous promise they've shown. 

But apparently, that's too big an ask. At least in this, the most awful of years. Apart from Mac Jones, Kyle Dugger, Christian Barmore and perhaps Marcus Jones, the most promising player of those drafts just got suspended. This Jack Jones:

The one who saw his playing time rise rapidly over the first month. Who started getting assigned to other team's WR1s faster than any rookie corner I can ever remember. Who has missed some time with injury lately, but is still Pro Football Focus's 20th graded cornerback overall, 19th in coverage, 3rd among rookies, and has the 7th lowest passer rating when targeted in the league. 

That Jack Jones has been told to clear out his locker and go home ahead of the Bills game:

NESN - The New England Patriots seemingly have suspended two of their players ahead of Sunday’s regular-season finale in Buffalo. 

The Patriots on Friday shifted rookie cornerback Jack Jones and punter Jake Bailey from injured reserve to the “reserve/suspended by club” list, according to the NFL transaction wire. The moves were retroactive to Dec. 31, meaning both players could lose two game checks. 

The “by club” designation signifies these are team-imposed suspensions, not sanctions handed down by the NFL. It’s unclear what triggered either ban.

For the purposes of this discussion, we'll ignore whatever is going on with Jake Bailey. He went from All Pro punter to teaming up with Matt Palardy to produce the worst punting in the NFL:

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So he can piss all the way off and be replaced with some left-footed 6th rounder like the puntbot that he is. My focus on Jack Jones.

This move triggers more warning alarms than a submarine taking on water. The reason Jones fell all the way to the 4th round, 121st overall in the draft, wasn't lack of talent. Or competitiveness. It was coachability. The reason he washed out of USC, had to transition into that prestigious football factory Moorpark State in order to eventually work his way back to Arizona State was reportedly because he was a pain in the ass who caused problems for his coaches. 

Meaning his rookie season was strictly done on a trial basis. Earn everyone's trust. Straighten up and fly right. Unless you're fucking Maverick, you haven't earned the right to test the patience of your superiors. That takes years. As well as lots, and lots, and lots of games in which you took an elite receiver out of the game and created difference-making turnovers. And not a few weeks in which you blew the R2D2 novelty socks off a bunch on analytics guys. 

So yes, this sucks. Royally. The Patriots are walking into an emotional pressure cooker in a must-win game. One that Jerod Mayo called a "Plastic Bag Game," because lose and they're handing you a contractor bag for clearing out your locker. And their most promising rookie is getting his ass suspended for some mysterious reason. Even if his agent says it's no big deal and just a crazy misunderstanding:

… the really good guys, the ones worth keeping who work out in the long run, don't need their representatives making excuses for them before they've even reached the end of their first season. 

This is bad. I hope Jack Jones proves me wrong. But if experience has taught us anything - which is has - there is no way this isn't bad. We can't have nice things anymore.